So there has been a huge kerfuffle over free speech on the internet but this is also a fight over money. My initial expectation would have been that there is little money to be made selling advertising on opinion orientated blogs. So I wasn’t surprised when Club Troppo and En Passant claimed they weren’t making (any/much?) money. Similarly Larvatus Prodeo claimed they weren’t making (any/much?) money.
Robert Merkel had this comment
Oh dear, I’m going to have to cut back on chardonnay and lattes, with the $0.00 I currently receive for writing on LP being decimated…
So he’s getting nothing. Mark Bahnisch says LP is covering site costs and beer money.
LP was only receiving very minimal amounts of income from the aforesaid advertising; it had been reasonable for a while after first set up, but declined precipitously during the GFC and never really recovered. The revenue received certainly did not enable any of us to receive decent remuneration for writing; such income as there was went to site costs and a bit of “beer money”.
That comment seemed very reasonable. But Skepticlawyer draws our attention to this comment by Graham Young (emphasis added).
You’ve made tens of thousands out of my arrangement, and at the first whiff of trouble you’re all shafting me when all I was doing was being true to my pluralistic principles, the same ones that bought the trouble with the gay activists. If I wasn’t so open to publishing wrong opinion you wouldn’t have been part of the arrangement.
Graham Young has also revealed how much he makes from advertising.
In round terms On Line Opinion needs somewhere around $100,000 per year to function. We have been earning around $50,000 of that from advertising on the site and on the blogs listed in our Domain.
Having seen the data that Skepticlawyer sent me
LP dwarfs every other blog in the Domain save OLO itself.
I am inclined to believe Graham that there is more involved here than just ‘beer money’ although less than a ‘decent remuneration for writing’ for individual members of a large group blog.
Most of the blogs that make money seem to be blogs about making money from blogging.
daddy dave
13 Feb 11 at 10:31 am
‘decent remuneration for writing’ is a completely different kettle of fish to ‘remuneration for decent writing’.
Peter Patton
13 Feb 11 at 10:34 am
About $600 a month on average over the last little while. I’m pretty sure I said that somewhere. You seem very curious about our affairs lately!
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 10:41 am
I pretend to no insight on the details of LP‘s earnings from advertising via Domain but if it is true that LP has made tens of thousands out of the arrangement in the years it has been running and in the Domain, that could be consistent with site costs and a bit of “beer money”.
It would depend on how many thousands and how many years we were talking about. If it had diminished sharply to a trivial amount in recent years then it would be hard to claim that the loss of this revenue had driven their decision to cease partnership with Young.
Fran Barlow
13 Feb 11 at 10:56 am
Did the LP’ers drink Tooheys Red or Courvoisier?
How much money does it cost to run a blog? I thought they were meant to be cheap. If it is a full time hobby, then you need to supplement your income. Especially if you’re knocking back Hennessey XO with rappers etc.
.
13 Feb 11 at 11:01 am
Fran is basically right. I mentioned in the bit quoted that it had started off very well pre-GFC, and then decline precipitously, and been patchy thereafter. It’s also fair to point out that OLO took 10% of advertising income in return for the brokering, etc. which is eminently reasonable. We had very significant hosting costs last year associated with measures to try to fix up a hack, which is why we shifted hosts to the Ozblogistan network.
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 11:03 am
Fran – yes that could be possible.
Sinclair Davidson
13 Feb 11 at 11:04 am
So let expand a little .
Young and sl say there’s a lot of money involved, more than beer money.
Some of the people say they have never received a zack. Meanwhile one of the owners says it barely covers costs.
I smell a rat bigger then a fucking wombat here .
Would I be right in thinking there could be sweatshop conditions operating in the workplace.
Should Fair Pay Australia become involved in the interests of fairness?
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 11:20 am
Thank you Joe Cambria from the Fair Pay and Global Warming Institute.
Next up, Andrew Reynolds from the Sharia Banking Institute.
.
13 Feb 11 at 11:22 am
Hmmm, it’s a pity my comments are stuck in moderation and others are able to speculate wildly to their hearts’ content!
We’ve always said that we’re happy to be transparent about advertising so I don’t mind commenting on that. The income wasn’t great for most of the arrangement, as I’ve said, and the costs considerable. To respond to JC’s point, as I said, over the last few months or so, it averaged $600 a month. At one point from memory, it was less than $200 a month, and sometimes it’s been about $700-900 but those are outliers.
To answer Ken Nielsen’s question, no, our decision wasn’t driven by questions of income from the advertising arrangement.
Above and beyond that, I don’t intend to comment further. My view is that – if people are concerned about the financial sustainability of OLO and the income Graham Young derives from it – the least likely thing to make his site attractive to advertisers again is a perception that the whole issue and advertisers’ decisions are prone to be discussed across the length and breadth of the internet, and be potentially subject to political discussion in newspaper columns, blog posts and myriads of rather heated comments on blog threads.
[Sorry about that - I've been out. Sinc]
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 11:29 am
Dot
I’m reporting this immediately to the Fair Pay and Global Warming Institute to get their views.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 11:43 am
Mark – you’re big news. Why wouldn’t I cover it?
Sinclair Davidson
13 Feb 11 at 11:48 am
Christopher Pearson has moved on!
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 11:50 am
Ps – no probs about the moderation!
Just to reiterate, now having read SL’s comment, there’s no great mystery here. The arrangement lasted several years, and was much more remunerative for the first few months of 2008, before various advertisers used the GFC as a pretext for radically reducing the rates for online advertising placement. Anyone who keeps up with this stuff knows the major newspapers, etc, also have trouble making money from online advertising. SL should also recall that the income to her blog would have been much more meaningful in the first few months of the arrangement.
So, “tens of thousands” is not to be interpreted as somehow representing monthly income. It was a few hundreds.
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 11:54 am
and thank god for that. Two weeks of a blogging row would be very boring for his readers.
Sinclair Davidson
13 Feb 11 at 11:57 am
And further to Mark’s point, one might add that if the claim was that LP had abandoned the relationship with Domain over the loss of revenue, one would need to show that those in charge of LP‘s business arrangements had a plausible plan to protect a substantial part of these revenues of which severing the relationship with Mr Young was an essential or desirable part. If LP‘s action in withdrawing caused them to lose 100% of the revenue from Domain (rather than merely the IMB/ANZ parts of it) then it is going to be hard to claim that revenue was the driver for the action.
Fran Barlow
13 Feb 11 at 12:06 pm
Indeed, Fran, and it’s true that our current revenue from all sources is $0.00!
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 12:12 pm
“To answer Ken Nielsen’s question, no, our decision wasn’t driven by questions of income from the advertising arrangement.”
That wasn’t the question Mark. I was asking whether you could say that advertising revenue had absolutely nothing to do with your decision.
I am sure we would all accept such an assurance.
ken n
13 Feb 11 at 12:32 pm
Ken – yes.
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 12:35 pm
OK Mark, I’m glad to hear that.
It’s just that your letter to Graham gave a slightly different impression. It’s good to have the issue settled.
ken n
13 Feb 11 at 12:38 pm
No probs, Ken – maybe that bit about the financial health of OLO was ambiguously worded? I continue to believe that the way this issue has been handled has not been helpful for the sustainability of OLO and Graham’s income. He must, of course, act as he sees fit.
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 12:40 pm
Sure, I reckon Graham has had more advice than he wants about how he should run OLO.
ken n
13 Feb 11 at 12:43 pm
Mark Bahnisch, “Its a pity my comments are stuck in moderation and others allowed to speculate wildly to their hearts content”.
Aahh..
Now you know what it feels like.
At last some thing good has come from this discussion.
And yes, always butter up to the moderators, or who knows when/if you’ll get your turn.
How many years have I waited for this?
paul walter
13 Feb 11 at 12:45 pm
While on the subject of ads and ad revenue, Mark. Did you have a way on deciding what ads appeared on your site. The reason I ask is that Tim Lambert’s site, Deltoid usually carries ads for benaughty dot com, which sells itself as a “get sex easy site”. You can’t avoid it because it has pic where the camera is looking from the rear in between a gals great backside and legs(she’s wearing skimpy panties) to a dude sitting down intently looking towards the camera.
I would guess advertisers do a little research and in this case Tim’s readership fit the profile of people looking for the little extra in their lives that must be missing. Just speculation here though.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 12:53 pm
Paul :
What’s you issue with Mark as I’ve noticed a little tension here. Discuss please.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 12:55 pm
oops your…
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 12:55 pm
Oh fuck me drunk. Check THIS from Doctor Banish!
These luvvies truly do live in fairyland.
Peter Patton
13 Feb 11 at 12:59 pm
Aw, the poor poor victims of LP repression.
Start a support group why don’t you? Sad tossers.
IRL, if you repeatedly come to someone’s place and vomit on the furniture, you’ll eventually wear out your welcome with most hosts. Why should a blog be different?
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 1:03 pm
Eventually, FDB, but here we are very tolerant.
ken n
13 Feb 11 at 1:07 pm
Poor? Luv, I think it is an absolute hoot that a fricking blog can have a list of 795,467 names and IP addresses, which the LP Stasi of Rosa Klebss keeps in its gulags, and monitored 24/7.
Peter Patton
13 Feb 11 at 1:07 pm
“a list of 795,467 names and IP addresses”
Most of which are your own sockpuppets, from a few years spent desperately vying for attention while everyone laughed at you.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 1:13 pm
FBD, you are so typical of all that’s gone wrong with a good blogsite, LP. The defensiveness, pack mentality, the abrasive moves to exclude…Boy, am I glad I don’t have to put up you and your spite any more.
paul walter
13 Feb 11 at 1:15 pm
Maybe one day you’ll stop obsessing about it.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 1:17 pm
FDB- Indeed!
@JC – no, the ads were booked by PostClick. My understanding was that the deal with The Domain was that they would seek to fill the space with whatever they could attract at the highest possible rate. I believe there were procedures in place whereby we could object to particular ads, and I’ve got a vague recollection that we might have done so early on, but it’s just that.
I think the point that the advertisers hadn’t made a deliberate decision to buy space on any particular site is an important one in this whole kerfuffle. My understanding is that the corporates in question would just allocate a certain amount for their online spend, and PostClick would decide where to place it – from their point of view to target the demographic they were after at the lowest possible cost to them. So I doubt any particular advertiser decided “we will support this site because we agree with its stance” as it were. It was all at at least one remove.
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 1:26 pm
Fair points all, Paul.
FDB. pull your freaking head in an apologize to Paul.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 1:27 pm
No Paul it is much simpler than that. FDB simply hasn’t noticed it is past Brandivino o’clock. He is much more clubbable after a few hits.
Peter Patton
13 Feb 11 at 1:28 pm
“…stop obsessing…”
In defence of his beloved Larvatus Prodeo, the perpetually livid and constitutionally sycophantic FDB has posted dozens of comments in the past 24 hours.
Almost all of them about me.
C.L.
13 Feb 11 at 1:29 pm
“bzzzzzz”
*swat*
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 1:31 pm
What Mark says is the way it works.
On this kind of thing advertisers are just playing at this stage.
They understand how search works and how to get value for money with Google et al but just about every thing else is experimental.
I’ve spent a bit of money on internet advertising and am not yet convinced it’s value.
ken n
13 Feb 11 at 1:34 pm
Thanks for the explanation Mark. I was just wondering if the advertisers were using some sort of logarithm that was able to synthesize for the frustrated angry male and if benaughty dot com had used to it latch on to Deltoid as it seems a perfect match ( no pun intended). That’s all.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 1:35 pm
Whilst I’m sympathetic to Graham Young’s situation, I think he’s being precious to complain about people bailing “at the first sign of trouble.” He has a business arrangement with people – not a fan club.
BTW, did advertisers have the ability to exclude their ads from appearing certain sites – or even individual pages? I would think if that feature were available, we wouldn’t be in this situation (or am I wrong on that?)
Fleeced
13 Feb 11 at 1:36 pm
Oops, sorry – hadn’t read this bit:
That kind of answers my question – and as an advertiser, would make me reluctant pay a decent price for the ads.
Fleeced
13 Feb 11 at 1:39 pm
JC – there are sites where the particular ads that show relate to the page content (e.g. google ads), and others that look at the browser history of the person visiting the site (depending on security settings etc).
So be careful what you’re owning up to here!
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 1:42 pm
Fleeced, that’s certainly how we regard it. We continue to wish Graham well and hope that he will be able to sustain the viability of the aims he sets OLO, but for a range of reasons, which we’ve explained, did not feel that this commercial association between us could or should be maintained.
Mark Bahnisch
13 Feb 11 at 1:42 pm
Yea Fleeced… I think Graham is an idealist who thinks we may have differences but through polite discussion we can all work things out.
But it doesn’t quite work that way.
In reality our political system is basically war by other means. We basically accept that we don’t beat the shit out of each other and allow the ballot box to decide who runs things for a while.
But fair dinkum, what common traits would say I would have with Happy Hamilton other than we unfortunately share citizenship and breathe the same air? He doesn’t even believe in the democratic process suggesting we should suspend democratic rights.
It business plan was always going to end in tears because although there may be the possibility of a personal relationship with people with different ideologies it can’t carry through to political beliefs.
This was always going to happen.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 1:47 pm
Yes, JC. And its disappointing when you discover people you respected or invested hope in have no more “vision”, tolerance or open-mindedness than their opponents.
paul walter
13 Feb 11 at 1:53 pm
What am I owning up to, FDB, you dill.
I said I saw the benaughty dot com on Lambert’s site and was wondering if there’s a way benaughty was able to find its target audience through a logarithm.
It sold itself as an easy sex site.
How on earth could this be suggesting anything about me?
Oh I get it. You’re suggesting that because I was reading Lambert’s crap I must be the nasty frustrated male the site is working to attract.
Fair assessment but it simply isn’t true. I sometimes go there to have a laugh at what he’s saying about Monckton . You know he’s on about his 88th thread on his Lordship? Talk about obsession.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 1:54 pm
“salty Paul. that’s how I’ve always felt about FDB and his lefty friends.
I feel the same disappointment at his sheer intolerance, open mindedness and vision.
Our libertarian trainee program has been a failure with him.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 1:57 pm
I don’t think it failed because of politics though JC. Graham did some great work in getting this arrangement together, but it sounds like he wasn’t adapting it to advertiser’s and affiliate’s needs. Advertising on content sites without ability to restrict? I wouldn’t have a bar of it, unless it was really cheap – and we were spending over $80k/month on Google ads at one time, so I’m not talking out of my hat here.
Fleeced
13 Feb 11 at 2:00 pm
FDB – the ads JC refers to were attached to the site.
The ads that relate to browser history or to blog content are good fun. I’m sure you recall we used to have blog ads here that used to generate all sorts of products especially on the open forum.
Sinclair Davidson
13 Feb 11 at 2:00 pm
“How on earth could this be suggesting anything about me?”
I already explained that. There are some ad services under which different visitors to an identical site will see different ads, partly determined by information collected by their web browser from past internet activity.
Thus if you had been visiting porn sites, or “easy sex with real-I-promise girls in your area” sites, then you might see ads that reflect that browsing history.
While I might see ads for sunshine and butterflies and recipes for pie, of course.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 2:03 pm
Sinclair – just plain wierd a lot of the time, but also there’s something hilariously self-defeating about it sometimes isn’t there?
Like, a post would go up absolutely ripping into something say, a left-wing econ book, and up came ads earnestly plugging same!
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 2:07 pm
Oh yea, I know the sort of ads you mean. I buy shirt and shit from sites and I get them on say Drudge etc. as a bespoke ads to describe them loosely.
Nope for two reasons, FDB.
I don’t bother with sex sites because they’re boring. I don’t need a dating site as I catered for there.
These ads were embedded at his site. In fact a couple of people emailed me to have a laugh about the ads and they were the ones that alerted me to them in the first place.
Good try but no cigar, doofus.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 2:10 pm
“bespoke ads”
A good descriptor.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 2:16 pm
FDB
Here’s a way to satisfy all our curiosity. Go email shiny and ask him if the ads are embedded at his site.
Also ask him for proof please for obvious reasons.
Here’s my question. Seeing the ONO thing blew up should a UNSW academic advertise benaughty dot com on his site that specifically mentions his place of work and stuff like that with links to his UNSW website.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 2:17 pm
Dunno what you are burbling on about JC, I can only see an ad for National Geographic on the deltoid site…
rog
13 Feb 11 at 2:27 pm
‘bespoke’ is a word that’s really been dusted off and revived in the past year or so. A decade ago it was a nineteenth century anachronism; now it’s a cool word to use.
daddy dave
13 Feb 11 at 2:27 pm
It says
Good idea I reckon
rog
13 Feb 11 at 2:28 pm
Shut up Quodge. If you doubt me go ask Shiny . I took a freeze of the page so I could send it to Sinc and he could publish it if he wants to.
Sinc can let me know.
I’m sure National Geographic would be delighted being associated with Benaughty.com ” a site for easy sex”.
In a way it’s a good point you raise, Quodge. National Geographic and benaughty dot com seem to have an obvious link. lol.
By the way did you find out about Shiny’s site through Zoo magazine seeing that’s an “authoritative” link you used to defend one of your stupid assertions?
Is Zoo advertising on Shiny’s site too?
———-
Dads
I’ve never seen bespoke being used before and it just came into my head when I was responding to that doofus, FDB.
Is it a common term these days?
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 2:36 pm
Quodge;
Did you find out about Lambert’s site from Zoo magazine. That the site you often used to defend your assertions on climate science and doctors wife politics that stopped when you realized we were laughing ourselves sick at you.
I’m sure national geographic would be delighted advertising on a site which also hots ads for benaughty dot com.
I have cut of the page from Lambert’s site. If you doubt me go ask him if its true, you 9th grader.
Jc
13 Feb 11 at 2:41 pm
I have screen shots of the page.
Sinclair Davidson
13 Feb 11 at 2:59 pm
I’m sure they are embedded there – why would I doubt it? I was just raising another possibility as an opening for a small gag.
And yes, it’s a very odd mix if hosted by a uni, and showing ads by Nat Geog and soft-porn dating sites. Maybe Lambert doesn’t even know – depending on the blogging software, an admin might not see the same thing the punters do, and he might not be privy to advertisers’ details.
Or he is, which would as I say be weird.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 3:05 pm
His site isn’t uni hosted.
Sinclair Davidson
13 Feb 11 at 3:11 pm
Is it a common term these days?
I’ve heard it more times in the past 6 months than in the rest of my lifetime. I’d say you have been exposed to it, which is why it was sitting at sub-threshold activation ready to be used, but you simply don’t remember where or who or when.
daddy dave
13 Feb 11 at 3:30 pm
If watch Grand Designs you hear “bespoke” used every 5 mins.
Infidel Tiger
13 Feb 11 at 4:06 pm
I’ve seen ‘bespoke’ used in software engineering circles to distinguish from COTS packages.
Jacques Chester
13 Feb 11 at 4:17 pm
I blame hipsters.
A friend apparently has a “bespoke fixie”. I nearly punched him.
The word means tailored for a particular customer from whole cloth*, to distinguish from suits bought off the rack and adjusted to fit.
*and jeez, it turns out describing it accurately necessitates using literally another archaic tailors’ term that’s been widely abused in metaphor.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 4:18 pm
The derivation being that a certain piece of cloth in the tailor’s shop is “bespoke” – i.e. spoken for, and not available to later customers. As I understand it, anyway. Though this does sound like one of those plausible-but-wrong pieces of cod etymology.
FDB
13 Feb 11 at 4:20 pm
JC has another fit of the hysterics over what? – free market advertising.
It’s like having your maiden aunt around for tea, an iced vo vo in a teacup. But do carry on.
rog
13 Feb 11 at 5:20 pm
You really misjudge people’s comments, Quodger.
I find Lambert’s ads hysterical and even more funny because they are on shiny’s site.
I was wondering if the the ad had a log that was able to find the ‘right” people to its ads.
JC.
13 Feb 11 at 6:28 pm
Lol!
Oh, cry me a fucking river you duplicitious lying fuckwit.
Yobbo
13 Feb 11 at 6:42 pm
I don’t find it hard to believe that Larvatus Prodeo’s ad revenue only covers beer money – you’d have to be totally shit-faced drunk to believe the kind of crap they write.
Mr. Papaya
15 Feb 11 at 4:03 pm
Tell us what you really think about Mark, Yobs
jtfsoon
15 Feb 11 at 4:06 pm
[...] sad when a familiar part of the landscape disappears but given their contempt for free speech (see here and here) that can’t be a bad [...]
Larvatus Prodeo closing down at Catallaxy Files
10 Apr 12 at 9:18 am